Allegiances: Decepticon
 

Laserbeak

Size: Mini-Con
Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Dark navy blue, black, and some dark red
Individual Rating: 7.0

    Laserbeak's alternate mode is a "spacecraft" that looks an awful lot like a gun without a handle. (And, of course, big surprise-- there's a handle at the bottom you can flip out to have a larger TF hold him as a gun or he can serve as a gun emplacement plugged into the top of Soundwave's alt mode!) Anyways, the "spaceship" portion of this mode is pretty much exclusively the fact that he was wings. There's two large guns on the front sides of the sloped body, which has some detailing on the front that COULD be interpreted as a small cockpit window-- if it was painted. As is, it just looks like some decorative line detailing, which is also present in minor amounts on the wings, along with some ridges. Each of the guns has a long, narrow barrel, looking like Laserbeak is looking for some pinpoint accuracy. The bird kibble in this mode is admirably minimal, but it's still there-- the most obvious being the bird legs just sticking out the bottom a bit in this mode, along with the black tail feathers somewhat ruining the steamlined look on the bottom of the body. The bird head itself folds into the back end, the slightly-visible eyes on it the only real obvious indication this is something more than just the back end. The color scheme borrows heavily from Soundwave, with Laserbeak being mostly a dark navy blue, with some black on the guns and underside in this mode. The only paint readily visible in this mode are red stripes on the back of the wings, which-- though appreciated-- really needed to be more prevalent to help enhance the look of the mode more.
    Laserbeak's transformation is simple, but rather effective-- fold out little black ends on the wings to elongate them, flip out the tailfeather piece from the bottom, and then flip back the guns, which causes Laserbeak's head to pop up. The end result is a darned cool-looking evil robot bird, which definitely is borrowing much more heavily from his G1 design now than the "buncha wing shards" look of his Prime predecessor. The head has a very sleek styling to it (heck, the whole figure does, but especially the head), with two long red eyes and no apparent mouth. (The eyes are the only additional paint apps you get in this mode, sorry.) The legs obviously aren't an extra in this mode, the wings look pretty cool with their longer proportions, and the body is appropriately sloped for a condor, given that he's turned around in direction from his gun/ship/gunship mode. The tailfeathers hanging out the back end do look a little weak given that there's an handle in the middle of them, but they still definitely make more sense in this mode compared to just hanging out underneath the whole alt mode. Having the twin guns flip around to rest on Laserbeak's shoulders was a really good idea, and gives him some firepower in this mode. For articulation, he can move his wings up-and-down at two points, and his neck up and down. (Unfortunately his guns can't be posed without starting to transform him back into alt mode.) It's pretty good for a little bird accessory this small.
 

Soundwave

Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Color Scheme: Dark navy blue, dark glossy gray, and some black, dark red, glossy black, and dull mustard yellow
Individual Rating: 7.7

    Soundwave's alternate mode of a bulky armored vehicle could hardly be more different from his Prime predecessor, but it still definitely looks like a Soundwave toy. In this mode, he's got rather cartoony proportions (even for a RID2015 toy), with an extremely lare, bulky bottom half and front hood, and a relatively tiny section where the driver would actually fit in (the cockpit windows), along with some molded-in machine gun emplacements near the back end, which aren't placed in this configuration on his other RID2015 toys. As far as robot mode extras go, though, there's only a few minor ones-- his kneecaps stick out a bit below the front bumper, and on the back end instead of having stuff like headlights, an exhaust port, etc., there's his robot shoulders and chest, with his head obviously folded down above said chest. However, you're rarely going to look at this toy from the back end, making the first extra a very small issue and the second a moderately bad issue at worst. There's a decent amount of mold detailing in this mode, though-- like the small circular headlights on the sides of the front, the faux "G1 chest replica" on the front bumper, and some mechanical angular lines here and there, though particularly on the front half it's a bit smoother than I'd expect from a semi-military vehicle. For colors, Soundwave is mostly a dark navy blue as you'd expect, though his other colors are a bit sparse. His wheels are black, of course, and there's a few other spots of black like some minor connector parts and the buttons on the top of this mode, but from most angles (i.e., not the back end, which I'll get to during the robot mode review), all you can really see paint-wise to break up all the blue are some dark red on his windows (which, again, are tiny) and an outline of mustard yellow around his faux chest replica on the front bumper. No headlights painted, or even the center of his grill, which should be black... there's even a space for the Decepticon emblem to be placed there, but there isn't one! The paint here is really lacking.
    Pressing in on the two black buttons on the top of this mode-- or inserting Laserbeak or another Activator Mini-Con with their peg folded out-- will cause the back end to pop open, revealing two fairly large missile launchers that flip out to the sides. They don't actually fire missiles-- they're merely molded in-- but what's super cool about this gimmick isn't the fact that there's a couple of new weapons, but that these whole sections move back and forth on the back end as you roll Soundwave along-- there's a rubbery fifth wheel on the underside of this mode, and rolling it will make it look like he's firing one launcher and then "reloading it" as the other fires. It's a really cool, addicting gimmick and the best Activator gimmick in the line, in my opinion. The only downside is that since the back end is more "open", you can more obviously see the back of Soundwave's head with this gimmick deployed.
    Soundwave's transformation is rather simple-- fold out the arms and shoulders from the rear sides, flip down the whole front sections to become the legs, and then fold down that front section below the back section on a hinge to connect the two halves of the robot mode. Then just flip up the robot head and you're done. As far as show accuracy, this definitely isn't the best RID2015 Soundwave toy. He does have the accurate G1-homage chest that looks a bit like a tape deck-- what with the black in the center surrounded by some mustard yellow-- as well as a relatively trim stomach and waist, and very wide shoulders with bulkier arms (though they're more square than they should be, given the transformation). His legs are completely inaccurate, though, simplified as they are into just being the whole front half of the alt mode, split into two. The upper legs are pretty tiny proportionally compared to those huge stompin' lower feet, though the kneecap details do help make the "transition" look a bit better between the two leg sections, and he's VERY stable with those huge feet. Soundwave also has his two cannons on his shoulders, which of course isn't show-accurate, though it does give him some beefed-up firepower in this mode, and since you're looking at the opposite end of the cannons in this mode there's some different details on them this time around. The fifth wheel in vehicle mode ends up behind Soundwave's lower torso, which you can rotate some to get his shoulder packs aligned in this mode. Because of the shoulder packs there's a big section of plastic above his head, making him not have the best field of view in this mode if he could actually look around, heh. His facesculpt is well-done, but taken from the skinny Prime Soundwave, it still looks very alien to the rest of this bulked-up toy. The color scheme is a bit better broken-up in this mode, with the black chest and red on the face, shoulder packs, and feet. Dark gray has been added a lot to this mode, on the lower arms, uppper legs, and waist, and all this helps break up the blue considerably more than in vehicle mode. There's a couple of added details-- like the faux "button details" on his waist and some mechanical details on the inside of his arms-- but largely he's still fairly sparse, given how much is carried over from his vehicle mode. For articulation, Soundwave can move outwards at the shoulders and back-and-forth at the elbows and knees. (His hips can only move outwards a tiny amount-- just enough to separate them, really). So he doesn't have great articulation-- a real shame, given the size of the toy and the fact that there's nothing in the transformation preventing him from having considerably better articulation.

    RID2015 Activator Soundwave does have a few issues-- not enough paint in vehicle mode, fairly poor articulation in robot mode, and a lack of show-accuracy in some robot mode aspects in particular-- but Laserbeak is an awesome minion, and his Activator gimmick is incredibly fun. Unless articulation matters more to you than playability (in which case I'd recommend the Warrior), I think this toy fits a nice mix of having a good number of features while still having a decently good look to him. My favorite toy of RID2015 Soundwave, and my favorite Activator Combiner to boot.
 

Reviews by Beastbot

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